


I can't love you

by AetosForeas



Series: She who cannot be escaped [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Genre: F/M, I like Natakas, I still think Brasidas was her soulmate though, She's gonna live 2400 years, So let her get some love in when she can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-08-20 14:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetosForeas/pseuds/AetosForeas
Summary: It's been years since Brasidas died, but Kassandra still loves him. Why does she find herself staying in Dyme with Natakas, then? Why does she find the idea of leaving so awful?





	1. Chapter 1

_Real connections with people are rare. We shouldn’t be too quick to let them go._

The words were Kleta’s, spoken before the woman’s daughter died. Perhaps she thought better of them after the Tempest lay dead from the wounds she’d suffered. Kassandra looked over the edge of the house in Dyme, considering the view, and why she still hadn’t left. The Tempest – Phila – had died a week before and with her the Order’s power in Achaia lay broken. The refugees that had sought escape were now gone – all but two.

But it was those two that were the complication, each in their own way.

Darius, or Artabanus, interested her because he could almost keep up. In some ways, he was her superior – he could actually evade her if she didn’t keep her attention focused, and he had a habit of waiting until you looked away for a moment and then vanishing. And while he wasn’t quite the fighter she was, he could challenge her – on their first meeting he’d attacked her and it hadn’t been easy to fend him off. In Artabanus, she found that rarest of things – a peer. Before him, only Alexios had been so closely matched.

Then there was Natakas. Artabanus’ son. And she really didn’t want to think about why _he_ made her want to stay in Dyme.

_I’m not staying for him_. She rubbed her hand across her face. _I should be honest with him._

They spent almost all their time together. They went hunting together. They drank wine together, told stories of each other’s lives, his on the move with his family, hers alone on Kephallonia with only Ikaros and Phoibe, and sometimes Markos if you counted him. From Dyme she could look out over the Ionian Sea and find Kephallonia, see the south of the island where her hovel was. She hadn’t been back – for all she knew, someone else lived there now.

She’d pointed it out to him.

_I’m not staying for him._ She felt strange without armor on, with only the broken spear for a weapon. Strange, but a strangeness that she courted. The little house in Dyme wasn’t her home, could not be her home, and yet it felt more like a home than Sparta ever could now. Because he was dead, and everything about Sparta reminded her of that. In Dyme, she had days when she didn’t once think about him being dead. Days she forgot to grieve.

She heard someone climbing up the ladder to the roof. It had to be Natakas. His father wouldn’t use the ladder and he’d be furious with himself if she heard him. He pulled himself hand over hand and hauled himself up in a few smooth motions. He was quite fit. A life spent on the run had left him taut, thin but not gaunt, wiry but not too lean. Her eyes flickered over him before she realized they shouldn’t.

“Do you ever sleep?”

“Often. I enjoy small naps, and nights under the stars.” She pointed to where the sky was still dark, a few stars still visible as the band of orange grew wider on the eastern horizon. “I was watching.”

“Watching what?”

“People. Animals. Thinking about going hunting again.”

“At this rate there won’t be any boars left in Dyme.”

“I suspect one or two a week will barely dent their numbers.” She made sure not to laugh. “There are deer, bears, and I thought I heard a lion.”

“You’d hunt a lion?”

“Have done so, before.” She faltered, remembering Daphne. Before Brasidas… but she’d loved her god more, and tried to force Kassandra into the intolerable. She’d walked away from Chios and since then had heard nothing. However rare connections were, Daphne had not felt the same about keeping them. “I killed a lion in Argos once. A big one. Not the tawny color of most of his kind, a grey thing with stripes on its back. I’ve never seen another like him.”

“Sometimes I think you make these things up. If I hadn’t seen you…” He shook his head and sat down next to her, close. Close enough that she could feel him. It had been a while since someone had come that close to her without meaning her harm. She thought it might have been Barnabas, or her mother. Even now, she and Alexios only rarely touched one another.

There was a momentary spasm of memory. She closed her eyes, because she knew better than to try and fight it.

“…by yourself all those years.”

“I’m sorry, I was distracted.” She opened her eyes and there he was, looking at her, his eyes so large and dark and full of things she couldn’t think about. “What did you say?”

“How old were you when you went to Kephallonia?”

“I was very young. I don’t remember if I was six or seven yet.” She thought back. “I was home trained, because Nikolaos knew that once I went to the woman’s _Agoge_ they wouldn’t focus enough on weapons. Both he and _mater_ knew I was going to have to fight.” She remembered her visits to the _Agoge_, the talk about future lessons, the laws of old Gortyn and Lycurgus’ reforms.

“I thought it wasn’t common for Greek women to be educated.”

“Sparta is different. Women go to school, exercise and drill. Learn how to trade and run an estate. _Spartiate_ men have to prepare to die for Sparta. The women have to live there.” She smirked. “My _mater_, and her mother Gorgo… I wish I was more a Spartan, that I was like them.”

“When I was very young, we lived with my mother’s mother. She passed when I was just old enough to remember her.”

“I never met any of mine. I don’t even know if Gorgo was still alive when I was born. My mother’s brother was on the throne by then, and she was more or less free to marry as she chose.”

“And she chose your father?”

“Yes. Both times.” He furrowed his forehead but she didn’t explain. It was hard enough to know without having to repeat it. Instead she pointed down at the trees below the house, at the bushes and trees. “See? There’s a deer down there.”

“So there is. I should have seen that.”

“Artabanus would chide us both for having missed it this long.”

“He prefers Darius.”

“You’re right. I’ll try and remember.” Her shoulder was touching his and it was warm and she couldn’t be thinking anything about it, because if she did, if she’d deliberately moved to be closer to him that meant something that it couldn’t mean. “So how much longer will you two stay here?”

“Kleta’s friend isn’t coming back and we let our ship leave, so… a while, certainly. It’s a good place. The townsfolk are friendly and don’t ask too many questions, there’s plenty of game to hunt, and what we can’t gather or grow we can trade for easily enough. Better than the cave we were living in when we were in Makedonia.” His face was solemn but there was humor around the edges of it and his eyelashes were long and thick, even longer than Kyra’s had been. Even longer than…

“Certainly it is better than a cave.”

“Are you in a hurry to leave, Kassandra?”

“Sooner or later Barnabas is going to get bored sitting in Patrai. There’s work to be done.” She stretched, and if her arm stayed touching his she didn’t think about how that felt. “Life of a _misthios_. Plus my _mater_ and… my _mater_ will be missing me.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“You would?”

“Yes.” He turned to face her. “I think I’ve made myself clear to you, and you’ve stayed, and… but at the same time you can be hard to read.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“I admit it, when you’re driving that spear into someone’s spine or kicking a man off of a cliff, you’re quite easy to interpret.” The smile was playful and she smiled back and forgot to correct herself. “But when it comes to what this is…”

She felt herself heading for a ledge. Her instinct when faced with a ledge was to jump off. This time she didn’t know how, could feel her mouth going dry.

“Come with me.” She said, standing up. His face was hard to see, her body blocking the dim light of the rising sun, but he nodded.

She’d put on her leather breastplate and her belt and greaves, her favorite spear and her _kopis_ as well as the Leonidas spear strapped to her quiver, and of course her bow. She’d had that bow since Kephallonia. She’d killed several bandits to repay a repair job on that bow, and had worked to keep it in condition since. It was almost as close a friend as Ikaros by now.

She sighted down it, arrow nocked almost to her ear, and waited. Her breathing slow, deep, and even. She’d intended to go for a deer but once they got into the shadow of the hill the house rested on, Natakas had found a big boar’s tracks and they’d followed the old tusker almost to the coast.

When everything came together, her breathing, the boar’s head rising up to put his eye in just the right spot, it was as if the arrow released itself. It flew across the gap in the trees and buried itself up to the fletching in the eye socket, penetrating the brain and ensuring almost no pain or suffering for the animal. Natakas whistled from her left.

“That was a shot worthy of Apollo.”

“Nah. Maybe Odysseus.” She forgot again that she wasn’t supposed to smile. “His palace is, sad to say, not up to his standard.”

“Is there anywhere you haven’t been?”

“Persia.” She clapped a hand on his arm, enjoying the moment. “Come on, he’s not going to get up and carry himself back to the house.”

They dressed the kill together, her handling the disemboweling while he made sure to harvest the choicest bits of the liver for Ikaros. The bird descended to feed, resting on Kassandra’s shoulder and taking morsels from Natakas without even biting his hand.

“If you’d told me I’d be hand feeding an eagle.”

“He likes you.”

“He likes food.”

“Yes, and you’ve got some, so he likes you.” She watched as he finished and set to work bleeding the corpse. It was cool enough still, with the sun only a bit above the eastern hills, that they didn’t feel the need to skin it yet, and once it was empty of its organs they tilted it to let the blood run out of the chest.

Carrying it back up the hill wasn’t easy, even for them, but they managed it and Kassandra spent the next hour skinning and dividing it up into pieces to cook in their oven.

“You look a fright.” Indeed, there was blood up to her elbows.

“Back in Sparta, they’d make a lot of blood soup out of a boy this big.”

“Blood soup?”

“Trust me, you don’t have the stomach for _melas zomos_. I admit, it’s not a meal I relish.” It took the next few hours to cook all of their kill, and then to get it in jars for the trip down into Dyme. They kept the ribs and legs for their own consumption, leaving a note for Darius in case he came back before they did. Kassandra made sure to wash and strip off her armor, dressing in a simple _exomis_.

By now the agora in Dyme was open, and several of the townsfolk waved greeting as they came down. Kassandra was always surprised at how open they were, but nobody would say no to fresh meat, and both she and Natakas were far superior hunters to anyone who lived in the area. They traded for some barley bread, olives and both pears and pomegranates. The pomegranates reminded her of a small stall in Arkadia, and they were halfway up the hill before she realized she’d remembered that without it hurting.

She stumbled and Natakas moved, catching the basket she’d almost lost.

“Are you all right? I’ve never seen you do that before.”

“I’m fine.” She also wasn’t grateful that he simply accepted this.

Darius was indeed back when they arrived at the house, perched above it and clearly had been watching them come up from Dyme. She shook her head, thinking how truly annoying it was to live with someone who did everything she did. Finally she understood why she’d driven her _mater_ crazy at the house in Sparta.

“Father!” Natakas shouted up to him. “I got you some of those olives you like.”

“The ones from Meli’s stall?” Darius’ voice was quiet, and his real affection for his son came through as he dropped off of the roof and into the yard. He nodded to Kassandra and she nodded back. She was never quite sure how to act around Darius, or Artabanus, or…

_Natakas said he prefers Darius. So call him Darius._

The two men fell into an easy conversation and Kassandra left them to it. Inside the house, she found her gear had been cleaned and put away. In some ways, Darius was as big a mother hen as her own _mater_ could be. She looked at it, the leather and bronze breastplate, the bronze greaves, the belt which held her _kopis_ on. She’d worn each piece since that day years earlier when she’d realized she had to get off Kephallonia, when Elpenor had offered her more drachmae than she’d ever seen to go kill a man.

_Some assassin you are. Nikolaos still breathes. You even call him Pater sometimes._

There was a hot rush in her stomach, like being sick, but she wasn’t sick. Not physically. She almost never got sick… on her first sea voyage, and when she imbibed heroic amounts of unwatered wine, but that was about it. But the sensation of pressure in her gullet only increased, until it demanded some form of action, and she donned her armor just to make it ease.

Natakas walked into the house just as she was pulling her greaves on.

“Going somewhere?”

“We need to talk.”

“You need armor for that?” He leaned against the wall. “Surely I’m not that frightening to the Eagle Bearer.”

“You are terrifying.”

“Oh. You meant it.” He straightened up, took a step closer. “Still, I don’t think it’s me you’re afraid of.”

“It’s everything. It’s what you mean.” She looked across the room, where the big bronze helmet she’d taken from Nikolaos the day she was supposed to kill him sat. She wished she was wearing it. “The year before I met you. There was someone. I loved him.”

He didn’t interrupt, just waited, and she found more words behind those, all waiting like the ranks in a phalanx, dropping spears over the shoulders of the line before them.

“He asked me to marry him. I said no, at first. Life in Sparta as a Spartan wife, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. But I _did_ love him.” She made sure her eyes were on his, that he could see her face and hear her voice. “I do love him. I always will love him. Before him, there were others, but for him… he asked me again, before Pylos. I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t say no, either.”

“Considering you’ve been here for two weeks and no angry husband has arrived, I can only assume you didn’t marry him.”

“He died.” Two words and they still hurt. To say, to think them, it still hurt. “We lost each other after Pylos, but we found each other. One last night together. At Amphipolis. He was the General in charge of the Spartan army… mostly _helotes_ and locals who hated the Athenians. A paltry few _Spartiates_. And me. One last night together, words whispered in the dark… and I watched my own brother kill him.”

Natakas didn’t say anything. They’d talked about the Cult, and her years hunting and being hunted by them. He knew who Alexios had been, who he was now.

“I love him. I can’t stop loving him. Not ever. Not after…” Her hands itched to hold a sword, or her spear. To leap, to drop to the ground. To find someone to fight, something she could just kill instead of standing in that house facing him. “He killed my love and I let him live. I should have… there was no revenge for Brasidas, no pain inflicted for the pain he’d caused. He is my brother and he was broken and I couldn’t do it and so I have to love him, I can’t ever let him go. I owe him that. I owe him everything.”

He took a step closer, and then another step, and she wanted to bolt out the door but she couldn’t. Days spent talking, laughing, drinking wine, listening to each other. Him talking about his sister Neema, about finding her broken body, about the years running. About how angry he’d been listening to Pactyas in the glade in Makedonia near the lake. His eyes on hers.

_Please understand. This can’t happen. I can’t._

“I can’t speak for you.” He didn’t come close enough to touch her, stopped just out of reach. “But I think we are made able to love more than one person in our lives.”

“I _can’t_…”

“Is it him that haunts you, or is it the idea of losing him?”

“He’s already dead.”

“Is he?” He didn’t move away, and his smile was sad. “No one we love is ever really gone from us. The lack of them becomes as loud as they were, lives woven together. You can cut a thread but the weave continues, and the place where they aren’t is still there.”

“It’s not that. I just don’t want you to think I’m pretending to something that can’t happen. I know you feel a certain way towards me.”

“Yes. Specifically, I love you.”

“_No._ That’s what we can’t do, you can’t love me.”

“I would listen to any request and give you anything I could.” He shook his head. “But I afraid this isn’t something that can be ordered away.”

“You _can’t_.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t stay. Because I’ll take another job, somewhere out there in the world. Because sooner or later someone – the Cult, or the Order, or just some stupid Athenian with a spear will get lucky, and I won’t come back. You’ll never see me again.” He hands wanted to shake but she refused to let them. “I know how that feels. I’ve been the one who had to get up every day knowing that. I’ve had to forgive it, to stop being angry at him… To know it was poisoning me, eating me from the inside. Letting go of that, I can’t do it again.”

“That does sound awful.” He was still meeting her gaze, still standing there. “So, let me just ask you one thing. Because I think it’s important.”

“Okay.”

“Isn’t it already too late for this?”

She stared at him, and he took her hand gently. It was calloused from using a bow, but still softer than hers. It was not like Brasidas’ had been.

“Kassandra. If you decide to leave, I will miss you. I will regret that you left. I will think about you, often, and wonder where you are. And if you never come back, I will be miserable for a time. Quite a long time, considering how miserable I was after father and I left Makedonia. You can ask him, if you like.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Even so.” He was still holding her hand. He squeezed it, gently. “I can’t hold you anywhere you don’t want to be and I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you can’t, you can’t. If you don’t, then you do not.”

“It’s better for both of us.”

“Perhaps.” He released her hand and she looked down at it, at the sword marks etched into her skin. Remembered her forearms covered in blood after the boar. _There is nothing gentle about me, and if I stay…_

“I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do.” Her throat so dry. There was wine, but she didn’t think she should drink it. She walked to the helmet, lifted it in her hands. Remembered the day she’d slammed it onto Elpenor’s table and claimed Nikolaos was dead. _The Wolf is dead_. It had been a lie, and Elpenor had swallowed it whole. She’d not really thought about that moment in years, how easily she’d lied to him. “Goodbye, Natakas.”

“Goodbye.” He stood there and watched her as she slid the helmet on and stepped out. She clambered up the side of the house, walked to the small wooden spar that extended over Dyme. Took a moment to breathe, her feet placed evenly on the wood.

“Going to town?”

Darius. She hadn’t seen him, and it irritated her all over again. She hated it when he snuck up on her. She hated it because she was the one who snuck up on people. She found his ability to do it to her almost hateful.

“Patrai. Haven’t spoken to Barnabas in a few days. He might have work for us lined up.”

“Tell him I said hello, and no, the _Xšâyathiya Xšâyathiyânâm _does not have wings.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh, yes. What is that phrase… you would call him the King of Kings. _Basileus Basileon_.” Darius was looking not at her but over the town. “He was most insistent I tell him all about Persia, but my answers seemed to disappoint him.”

“Yes. He is an exuberant man.” She wanted to jump but while he was there it felt like she was pinned there.

“I was thinking about what you said to me in Makedonia.”

“I said a lot of things to you in Makedonia.”

“Not that many.”

“I believe I complained about you vanishing on me a few times.”

“Patience. You’re already much better than I was at your age.” He kept his gaze fixed on Dyme below them, his expression serene. “About teaching your son to fish.”

“Oh. Yes.” She remembered it, a passing comment about a life she no longer felt she could have, since Brasidas died. Strange, that she’d said it to Darius, when the chance for children was gone forever now. “It’s a nice dream.”

“Yes.” He looked at her and his look was full of pity and she felt anger in every part of her, but also a fascination. “There will always be more to lose. No matter what you do. No matter how much you cut out of your life, even if you never go back to Sparta and just exist on the waves, selling your sword for coin. There is always more you can lose, Kassandra. Don’t throw what time you can have with it away.”

“I can’t do it again.”

“I sent you a letter. If you can’t do it again, why did you come?”

“Because… it’s not that I don’t care, I just don’t…”

“Would you come again? If I sent you another letter, would you come to help?”

“I’m just going to hurt him, or worse.”

“Once, I told you. It’s always the ones we love we hurt the most. Always.” He slumped his shoulders. “I know what it is, to love someone you’ll never see again. I let my life close off. Don’t do the same.”

With that, he leapt off of the roof and dropped out of sight onto the hay below and left her standing there. For a moment she seriously considered jumping down after him, arguing further, but what would be the point? It wasn’t him she was angry at, really.


	2. The Ruins

She spent ten minutes clinging to the rock face as the sun slipped below the horizon, sweat stinging her eyes under the helmet.

_I should have worn the hood._

The cliffs around the fort in Lemnos were steep, and there were many places to hide. Once the sun was below the waves she finished her climb, scanning the area with Ikaros’ help. There were many guards in the distinctive armor of the Cult, with the silvery metal and the twisted faces on the helmets. It was better decoration than actual armor, she’d fought Persians in leather who were harder to kill that the Cultists.

_Someday someone will gather a real army of hoplites and go to Persia and the Persians will finally see what real armor is._ Ever since the Order had started dogging her heels, Kassandra had found her old inherited disdain for them as soldiers coming to the fore. It had always been there – she’d grown up on stories of the cowardice of the Thebans for surrendering to Xerxes, and how Leonidas only lost to the King of Kings due to the treachery of a Greek. Man to man, in her childhood, no Persian could defeat a trained Hoplite.

_Strange, then, that you keep thinking about one Persian._

She shook her head, both to clear sweat and because she was angry. Angry at herself, a month since she’d seen him and not able to stop thinking of him. She had something else she should be focusing on, not the boundless dark of his eyes, the faint curl of his lip just before he smiled, the sound of his laughter like a caress making her feel warm inside.

_I don’t love him. I can’t. Now focus, Misthios._

She made her way up the hillside. Three times on her way up, she came upon guards, holding a torch in one hand and their spears loosely in the other. Their fancy armor was joined together at the sides, and Leonidas’ spear punched right through. She dragged their bodies back into bushes, or in the case of the one near the top simply hurled it over the side to crash into the rocks hundreds of feet below, well out of sight.

When she reached the steps of the tall, proud old temple at the top of the stronghold, she found Iobates, wearing only an _exomis_, praying to a statue of writhing snakes. His hair was greying, long on the sides, and his sunken chin could have used a beard to cover it in her opinion. But she had to admit, he’d evaded her for a long while before she’d finally come to Lemnos.

Every step felt like she was about to tread on a twig, or fall into a pit. She controlled her breathing, the Leonidas spear in her hand as she moved on feet as silent as possible. Part of her almost thanked Darius – she’d learned a great deal about stealth watching him, even more than she had as a Spartan child who would be beaten if she was caught, or a cast-off living the life of an unwanted orphan on Kephallonia.

Iobates finished praying, dropped his head and sighed, and then reached down to pick up a spear he’d left on the ground.

She leapt, one arm around his neck, pulling his head back. His hands came up, trying to dislodge her forearm, but he might as well have been trying to bend a steel bar, and the spear-head lashed out several times into his kidney, liver, and lungs in turn. By the time she released him he was bleeding out from five terrible wounds, the sound of his feeble breathing faint and gurgling out into a puddle of blood on the floor.

She stepped across his body and pulled the mask out of the pile of belongings he’d left in front of it. Looked at it for a moment, at the distorted face like a theatre mask, and then dropped it to be crushed under her foot.

“That’s for you and your creepy mask.” She hissed. It was petty, but she had no compunction about being petty when it came to the Cult. They deserved everything she did to them.

_You ruin lives. You are unnatural._

She glowered at the memory of Pactyas the Huntsman in the Makedonian forest, strutting and preening at her. _You are a killer, and you will never stop. So we will never stop hunting you_.

She made her way out of the Stronghold, bypassing the other guards. She hated that before Pactyas, she likely would have taken the time to clear the whole fort, to kill each and every one of the Cultists. Now, she went for their heads and only killed the ones that got in her way. But they were members of the Cult, and like the Order, they’d chosen this life. They’d put themselves in those creepy masks, they’d made their choice. Why should she feel guilty?

_I never claimed to be better than anyone. I grew up fighting dogs for scraps. I’m not the one who makes the world this way._

Her hands ached as she scrambled down the rock face until she was close enough to the water to leap off, and drop only a few feet from the _Adrestia_. She climbed up the side to find Barnabas sleeping on the top beck, and smiled for a moment before tapping him on the shoulder.

She stepped back before he jerked upright, half-drawing a dagger from his belt.

“It’s just me, Barnabas.”

“_Misthios_, don’t do that to an old man.” He wiped at his forehead. “Did you…”

“Iobates is dead. One more Cultist gone to Hades.”

“Excellent.” He moved, calling out to Raza to get the ship underway. Ikaros landed on the rail, held his wings out and cried for attention, so she spent a few moments gently preening his feathers with the knuckles of her hand. He leaned into the contact and made soft noises, almost coos but different. She found herself talking softly to him.

“Hello, my beautiful one. How is life in the sky?” He nibbled at her fingers expectantly and she broke off a chunk of salted meat from a small bag at her belt and fed it to him. When he was finished he cried out again and leapt back into the air, to spend his time circling the ship. She envied him keenly his ability to just fly away whenever he felt the need.

“So, where to?” Barnabas leaned against her.

“Is there anywhere you wish to go?”

“I wouldn’t mind stopping in Attica. I haven’t seen Leda in a few months. But if you…”

“That’s fine. We can dock there, and I can travel overland.”

“Where do you want us to meet?”

She just barely managed to stop herself from saying _Patrai_. Because even after a month gone, Patrai meant Dyme, and Dyme felt like home to her. It wasn’t home, of course. It couldn’t be home because it was just a house where Darius and Natakas were staying, it wasn’t even _their_ home, much less her home. It belonged to Kleta’s friend, no one Kassandra had ever met.

“Gytheion.” She managed, although that felt wrong. “Send a messenger up to my _mater’s_ house.”

*

Alexios smiled at her.

She’d ridden down from Attica through Megaris, and then gone from Korinthia to Arkadia before finally reaching Sparta. She’d made sure not to stop anywhere for long, just long enough to rest Phobos and make sure he was fed and watered. She would abuse herself, but never her horse.

By the time she reached Sparta she was tired and as tense as a nocked arrow waiting to fire, inwardly preparing herself for whatever she would find at Myrrine’s home. It had belonged to Leonidas before her, she’d grown up in that house, and had raised her daughter there for the first seven years of her life. Yet Kassandra still couldn’t think of it as her own home.

Seeing Alexios smile at the sight of her in the door felt like a fist, it left her off her footing. And when he stepped to her and his arms went around her she froze in place.

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

“It was a sudden decision.” She finally managed to give him something like an embrace. There were still hollows under his eyes, the legacy of many sleepless nights after they’d brought him home, but the smile seemed honest enough. “Where is _mater_?”

“She and Nikolaos are attending a meal. With Pleistoanax and Agis.” Alexios’ smile became wolfish. “He asked about you. I believe he even extended an invitation to you.”

“He’s persistent.”

“No desire to be Queen of Sparta?”

“If I wanted to be Queen, I’d _be_ Queen.” He raised an eyebrow at her and it was so _easy_, so much easier than she’d expected, like she had not been gone a year. “I don’t need Agis, or Pleistoanax, for that.”

“Careful. Pleistoanax dislikes us enough for what you did to Pausanias.”

“I thought Pleistoanax said Pausanias was in Messenia?”

“I’ve seen the boy he calls Pausanias. Two decades too young, but he does have the Agiad look to his eyes.” Alexios shrugged. “I keep out of it. The less they think about me, the better I like it. I let _you_ be the famous one, Eagle Bearer.”

“Hhhh. Hardly.” She scoffed, sat down at the table, dropped her traveling bag to the floor. “Do I have a bed here, or…”

“Stentor and Nikolaos live elsewhere.” There was a flat tone to Alexios’ voice that was hard to read. He looked fit, if not quite honed to the razor edge he’d been kept to as part of the Cult. “Nikolaos and I…” He shrugged, rolling his big shoulders, the muscles standing out underneath his _chiton_.

“Yes.” She found a jug of wine on the table. “Is this…”

“_Mater_ gets it from Arkadia. It’s good. I don’t like to take too much.” He was looking off into the distance out the door. She found that she wondered what he was thinking, or feeling, or remembering. Did he have a hard time forgetting, as she did? In a different world, it could have been Alexios who’d washed up on Kephallonia, and her in the talons of the Cult all those years.

_A voice, booming. _“You. Want. _WAR!?!?” This time, not the gruff, growing bear-like voice Alexios used, but a deep and sonorous woman. An exchange of sword vs. spear, a shield torn out of a man’s arms, and then as if toying with a child the woman slashed his arm, knocking the spear from his grip. Kicked the spear up to her hand.._

_Her own face, just before the spear went through his head, a sick glee on her features._

Her hand shook, and she lost the grip on the jug. It fell, and Alexios caught it before it shattered on the table. He peered at her searchingly.

“I’m a bit tired.” She brought her hand up to her face, rubbed at her eye. “Perhaps I should try and sleep.”

“The bed is still upstairs.” He was still looking at her, so rather than try and unravel what his look meant, she nodded and stood.

“Thank you. Tell _mater_ I’m here, if I don’t see her when she gets back?”

“Of course.” She felt him watching her head up, but was too tired to deal with it. She disrobed, pulling her armor and _exomis_ off and leaving them in a pile. She knew it was slovenly of her, and not the right way to treat what helped keep her alive. There was so little energy left, she hit the bed naked and didn’t even have time to pull the covers up.

The dreams came and went, some incoherent – one featured a shark in a peplos and himaton at a symposium, one that looked like Pericles’ house save that there was a cliff outside the door, and birds singing to a snail about swimming on the Styx. The dream then shifted to people she knew accusing the shark of impiety. Hippokrates in particular was insistent that the shark did not honor the gods.

“I was shaped by the hand of Poseidon. Given my teeth, made agile in the deep. I take each sailor fed to the ocean as a sacrifice to the husband of Amphitrite. I waste none. Who is a better servant than I? Accuse me not of impiety, dear Hippokrates.” Then the shark left, and Hippokrates sprouted antlers and led them to a hilltop in Arkadia where they all ate grass, save for Kassandra herself.

She instead found herself in bed with someone. The someone seemed to change – the supple limbs and smooth skin of Kyra became the throaty purr and fine hair of Daphnae, while Kassandra explored the nape of her neck, the swell of her breasts. But as she did, they became harder, flatter, the broad and muscular chest of Brasidas, and she could hear him grunting as she slid a trail of kisses up his chest, the hollow of his throat, and finally captured his lips with hers. She growled, on fire, feeling his tongue with hers, his hands sliding down to cup her waist.

When they parted the deep almost jet of his eyes, the dark of his smile, it wasn’t Brasidas anymore. Worse, as he bent in to bite at her neck, she moved her head and let him, felt him sliding his leg up between her legs, parted for him…

She woke frustrated. Frustrated that she’d had the dream at all. Frustrated that it ended before it ended, before he’d entered her. She felt like she hadn’t slept at all and her whole body down to her vulva and clit were demanding attention. She’d had no partner except her own hand since Amphipolis.

_That’s all it was. He’s handsome, and I’m lonely. That’s all it meant_.

Her return to sleep was not quick.

*

When she woke up again, the sun was in the sky and she could smell food. _Thank all the gods it’s not blood soup_. It was definitely meat, the smell of it haunted the room. She pulled on a spare _chiton_ that must have been Alexios’ – they were close enough in size that it fit her, if slightly large.

Her mother was seated at the table when she came down the stairs.

“Lamb, I know I bought you a perfectly fine _peplos_.”

“I don’t like it.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t fit well under armor.”

“Do you need armor here, in our home?” Myrrine stood and brushed her lips across Kassandra’s cheek, who accepted the kiss. When she’d first found her mother, she’d craved touch – an embrace, touching of their heads, anything to reassure her. Now, after a few years, it was less acute, but there was still a shock when they came into contact. Each had spent years thinking the other dead.

“I might. Where is Alexios?”

“He goes where he wills.”

“You don’t know?”

“Oh, I know. I just don’t bring it up.” She placed a cut of mutton on a plate, along with several olives and a few slices of goat cheese, and a quartered pear. Still fuzzy from lack of sleep and minimal food, Kassandra decided to eat first and ask questions about Alexios’ new habits later. “You have amazing timing. You just missed dinner with the Kings.”

“I’m sure it was better for my absence.” She popped an olive into her mouth. The taste was richer than she remembered, and she chewed it slowly, thinking about as little as possible. “If Agis keeps up I’ll give him a broken nose to match the one you gave his father.”

“He’s mostly accepted that you’re disinclined.” There was a hint of mirth in Myrrine’s voice. “To be fair to him, I do think he was sincere, not just looking for a political union.”

“He merely found it a bonus.”

“Exactly so. You have to admit, a union of the Eurypontid and Agiad lines…”

“They’ve tried it before.” Another olive disappeared. “I won’t marry to give Sparta more fuel for the fire, _mater_.”

“Have I said you should?”

“You haven’t.”

“So, what brings you home?”

“Why do I need anything to bring me here? Besides Phobos or the _Adrestia._ In this case it was Phobos.”

“Because you haven’t been home in over a year.”

_Because it’s not my home and it’s never going to be my home, now. I might have been willing, but there’s no reason now._

“Hellas is large, and there are many Cultists. Plus this new group. I mentioned them in the last letter.”

“This _‘Order of The Ancients_’?” Myrrine looked thoughtful. “My father never mentioned anything like them. Perhaps my _mater_ knew. She was always clever. She was the one who guess that the tablet from Demaratus contained a warning buried under the wax. Did I ever tell you that story?”

“Yes, _mater_.”

“You needn’t sound like I tell it every day.”

“If you do not it’s only because I am not here every day to hear it.” Kassandra smiled, the first real smile in days, and reached out to touch her mother’s hand. “It’s a good story. But I prefer the one about Aristagoras.”

“You would. ‘_Father, drive this man from Sparta lest he corrupt you.’ _It is as much her blood in you as that of Leonidas, and perhaps we are even more blessed by it.” Myrrine took her hand and squeezed it. “She would have scolded me so for letting you be away so much.”

“Did I… did she know me? I don’t remember her.”

“She died the year after you were born. She’d outlived my brother by six years, and it’s hard for a mother to see a child die, even one who died an adult and a King.” Myrrine let go of Kassandra’s hand and moved about the room, busying herself, and if she was hiding her eyes for a moment Kassandra understood. Myrrine wasn’t averse to shedding tears, but she didn’t do it often. In that, they were alike.

She decided to focus on eating, letting her head settle.

“So, tell me more of this ‘_Order_’ who hate us.”

“They call us ‘Tainted Ones’ and claim we are monsters. That we burn kingdoms, ruin the peace, bring disaster in our wake.” She remembered again Pactyas’ gruesome corpse tree, the look on the faces of those who claimed she’d killed their loved ones. It was possible, she knew – she had killed quite a few people along the way to revenge on the Cult, and her arrival in Makedonia had been violent. “So they hunt us. Apparently with great success.”

“So they claim. It took all of Persia to kill Leonidas.” She sniffed. “And here we stand. I may not think much of Pleistoanax, but the blood in his veins is the same as in mine, and this ‘_Order_’ has not destroyed Sparta to end him.”

“I have killed.” Kassandra’s voice was distant and Myrrine turned to face her, the daughter she had lost and gained again. In her heart, Kassandra was still that bright, beautiful child, the one the Oracle claimed had such promise. Brilliant, brave, as fierce as a lion and as daring as the eagle that followed her. Then she’d died.

Myrrine had never forgotten that moment. She hadn’t expected the Ephors to have men seize her, had thought their respect for her family would be enough to let her be free to act. But when Nikolaos had grabbed Kassandra’s wrist… she remembered thrashing, driving her elbow up into Archidamos’ face, seeing her husband let her child go.

She still didn’t remember how she climbed down the mountain, how she found Alexios’ body, broken, barely breathing. How she’d fled Sparta with him in her arms. Of Kassandra, there had been no sign, and she’d mourned, her heart torn asunder. And now, here she was, alive, but grown elsewhere, and all that time they might have had together gone as well. There was in Kassandra a pain that nothing could touch, a loss that had shaped her. It was more her parent than Myrrine had been, and the mother grieved to see it in her daughter.

“Those you have killed either tried to kill you or they served the Cult, knowingly or unknowingly.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I’ve killed for drachmae.” She looked up from the table, met her mother’s eyes. “I lived as a _misthios_ on a floating ball of shit up in the _Heptanesos_, I took whatever jobs I could get. I took a job to kill my own father. Even after I knew it was him, I still…”

“You didn’t kill Nikolaos.”

“I came close.” She shook her head. “But I don’t… that isn’t what really bothers me. I’ve been attacked by bounty hunters, I didn’t think they were monsters, they were just doing a job. The Order can dress it up all they like, but I’m not special. I’m not a threat to the world. Anyone can burn a city, it just takes the right time and the right act. My blood doesn’t make me different.”

“Then what is bothering you?”

“I still remember… ‘You ruin lives,’ he said to me. The one who called himself _The Huntsman_. And I think he was right.” She sighed. “Being close to me… it killed Phoibe. Pericles died because the Cult wanted to get to me. Because of what I did, Alexios… they tortured him, made him that _thing_, and he…” She sucked in a breath, realizing how close she was to saying it. How much she wanted, _needed_ to say it. Even her teeth buried in her lip, drawing blood, wasn’t enough to stop her. “Brasidas died because he loved me.”

“He died because he was a solider.”

“Naa, naa, if not for me…”

“You listen to me.” Myrrine’s voice was hard and cold and Kassandra looked up in surprise. The woman now sitting across the table from her had shed her humor and was all righteous anger, a flame always in her. “These _malakes_ come here, murder our people, try and topple _kingdoms_, and it’s _your _fault? They tell you they ruin lives with the blood of how many victims on their hands? When did you ever go to Persia? Neither the Cult or these bastards have the right to call you anything.”

“That doesn’t…”

“Yes, it does. How many times did I see your face break for that girl? I remember when you told me about her dying, the way you wept. The way you grieved. Do you think of all people _I_ wouldn’t recognize that? I know heartbreak, lamb. I know it very well.” She reached out and grasped both of Kassandra’s forearms, holding them tightly. “That girl was the child of your heart and you would never have hurt her. All this man said to you, he said to hurt you, because he knew he couldn’t beat you without you helping him. And where is he now?”

“Dead.” Kassandra couldn’t smile in that moment, but she still raised her head.

“They came here. They made war on _us_. What did they think, that we’d lie down for them? That we, that _you_ of all people wouldn’t fight back? They’re the killers. You know that ship of yours?”

“Of course I know her, she’s _my_ ship.”

“The first time you told me her name… _Adrestia_… all I could think was how perfect it was. She who cannot be escaped. And that’s _you_, lamb. You didn’t go to them. You didn’t bring this, all of this death and horror, that’s not because of you. _You_ are because of it. They are the ones who kill children because their hubris demands the world fit their desires, and you are the consequence.”

“People die because they’re… Phoibe was so young. She was only a few years older than I was when… I treated her like an adult, I didn’t protect her.”

“You didn’t know how. You were alone and had no one but a man who used you to line his own pockets and kept you in a shack. If I knew where he was…”

“No, please.” She shook her head. “If you love me, leave him be.”

“Because I love you, I will not look for him.” She hissed it out. “If he is ever foolish enough to come to me, I make no promises.”

“That’s fair.” They both laughed at that.

“How long have you been holding this?”

“Since forever. Since she died.” Kassandra shook her head to clear her eyes, blinked. “And every new death just makes it worse. When Brasidas… I let Deimos hurt him at Pylos, I _swore_ I wouldn’t let them fight at Amphipolis, but I was so busy looking for Kleon… I can’t do that again. I didn’t even take revenge for him.”

“Not killing your brother is no crime.”

“Isn’t it? I say I loved him, but his murderer walks free.”

“If Brasidas had been the one to kill Deimos, would you have killed him?”

“What? No, I would have tried to stop it, but…” She stopped, seeing Myrrine’s sad eyes, the crook of her mouth. “But it was war and he was a soldier.”

“All Alexios knew was war. Killing was the only thing they left him. Every friend he had was for the purpose of teaching him a lesson. Like the one with the lion. They _did_ that, on purpose.” Myrrine shook her head. “I grieve for what you lost, and I understand why you stay away. But you weren’t wrong not to kill your brother. You didn’t kill Brasidas, or the girl Phoibe.”

“I wish I believed that.”

“I will have to believe it all the harder, then. Because it’s true. Am I to blame for what happened to you both? I knew what my bloodline meant when I agreed to have you. I knew the Cult would seek us out. Did my love throw you off that mountain?”

“No, I didn’t… that’s not what I mean.”

“I know. But it’s the same thing. It’s not wrong to love people. It doesn’t ruin their lives. You aren’t a bringer of misery and there’s nothing tainted about you.” Myrrine wrapped her arms around Kassandra from behind. “You were, and you are, the best of us. Anyone you love is lucky to have you.”

They stayed like that for a while. The spell was broken when Ikaros landed on the windowsill and shrieked at them both. Kass chuckled, brushing wetness out of her eyes, and tossed a scrap of the meat from her plate to the bird. He caught it in his beak and it vanished, gulped down in two moves of its head.

“Hail, king of the air. It seems it’s safe for you to keep on with me a little longer, na? Or so _mater_ believes.”

*

“You stay away because I am here.”

“No.” She had been dreading this conversation, but after having an awkward meal with Stentor and Nikolaos, she’d thought that she might escape Sparta without it. “You stay away from it as much as I do. Are you avoiding _me_, little brother?”

“Yes.” They were out on the roof of the house, looking down the hill. She was seated, he was standing, and they were far enough apart that she almost didn’t feel uncomfortable before he spoke. “You remind me of who I was. Who I thought I would always be. The day I found out Chrysis was dead, I wept. Cursed you for taking her from me.”

She was so shocked by this that she just stared at him, her mouth open.

“But she…”

“Yes.” He dropped to sit next to her, still leaving enough space between them that she didn’t feel encroached. Perhaps he, too, needed that space. “I know what you might say now, because Myr…_mater_ has said it all to me, many times.” His hands were scarred and calloused and he held them out, rubbed them together in the night air. “But at the time, she was all the mother I knew. The closest I had to someone who loved me. Who praised me. You grew up alone, you must understand.”

She thought about Markos. Markos, who lied, and cheated her, and used her to do his dirty work. Who turned a child into a killer for hire because he could see she’d be good at it, and who never once seemed to think twice about ‘forgetting’ to pay her even when she found herself without the drachmae to even buy food. Markos, who she had begged her mother to spare.

“I suppose I can.”

“Even after I came here, you made me remember it. All of it. Everything I have done, and everything that was done to me.” His voice, so often a controlled growl, was far quieter than it had been. “When you left and kept writing back that you were delayed, or taking a new job, I saw _mater_ grow worried but I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to face you.”

_Do you have to now? _She didn’t really want this. Perhaps he needed it, but she wanted to just push it down, bury it, not think about it. About what he’d done, about what she’d let him do.

“But you are my sister and you trusted me on Taygetos. You left yourself open, when I could have…” He exhaled, shook his head. “I’d rather fight a hundred men than do this.”

“So where have you been going instead? While I’ve been here?”

“Pitana.”

“What do you do there?”

“There is a man. His name is Makhairos. He lost an eye and a hand to the Athenians. He has nightmares. So do I.” His face softened. “Now, we spend time together. It’s nice to have someone who can understand, at least a little.”

“Yes.” She thought of a dark eyed man in a house in Dyme. “It is.”

They sat there for a while, and she looked up and saw Selene in full, the white circle of her hanging low over the city. Remembered laying in the tall grass on a wolfskin cloak, her fingers in Brasidas’ hair.

“It can’t be undone.” She said, her voice cracking. “It happened. You did it. It will always hurt. I will always miss him. I will always love him, and I’ll never see him again. I’ll never have his touch again. And nothing I can do will change that.”

They sat there together, not speaking. Ikaros landed, screeched at her, then walked over and hopped up on her shoulder, rubbing his head on her neck and head. She let her fingers find his neck and gently scratch him, and he settled in.

“Don’t his talons hurt you like that?”

“Sometimes. But he loves me, so I take it. He doesn’t mean to do it, it’s just what he is.” She fought a fluttering in her throat. “I don’t hate you for it.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How do you not? How can you not hate me for it? I didn’t know who he was to you… I didn’t care, either. I just wanted to hurt you. Just for existing, for making me feel… anything. How do you not hate me for that?”

“You were so small.” Her fingers found a patch on Ikaros’ head and he dug in, just a little. “You were so small and I was so scared, every time I held you I was scared. I called you ‘Xios’ and ‘baby egg’, do you remember that?”

“I remember you holding me.”

“Not the egg part?”

“No.”

“It’s too bad. You kind of _looked_ like an egg. Your head was huge. And I know it’s hard to believe now, but you were hairless.” She gestured. Alexios had hair almost as long as hers and perpetual stubble, as well as a fair amount of hair on his arms and chest. “I don’t hate you because at first I blamed myself, and then I blamed the Cult. Because I loved you from the first day I saw you, when _mater_ showed me my little brother.” She inhaled and heard the edge of a sob in it, stroked at Ikaros’ head. Finally let the tears fall down her face. “They were going to throw you off of a mountain, and I tried…and I failed, and you were dead.”

“I didn’t even know you existed. I had a few memories… then there you were, in the chamber, in the robes. Your hand on the Artifact.”

“I loved him.”

“I know.” His hand came out, stopped. Stayed there, and then moved again, and rested on her shoulder, tentative. “I thought about if I should let you take revenge.”

“I can’t.” She convulsed. “I can’t kill you, Xios. I can’t. Anyone else in the world, maybe. But not you. I used to tie pillows to you because you were such a little egg, I thought you would break.”

She didn’t know when he drew her into his arms, or when they both started crying. She just sat there, mute, her eyes hot with weeping, her throat aching. Ikaros screeched as it happened, flew off annoyed that his scratches were over. That made her want to laugh but it just came out as another sob.

Eventually they ended up laying on the roof staring up at the sky.

“_Mater_ says you have someone new.”

“I don’t.” She shook her head. “I could have, but… it’s not fair to him. I can never love him, can’t love anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because… I ruin everything. People die just because I know them. Even you, look at all you suffered because of me. Because I tried to stop that ephor and failed. I just can’t.”

“When I visit Makhairos, I often feel like a fool.”

“Why?”

“He was my first.”

“You never…”

“I wasn’t allowed to. My only pleasure was conquest. Destroying our enemies. Showing the world my power. And once I was strong enough to make them all fear me… it was that I took pleasure from. I didn’t even know how to be gentle. What a kiss felt like, the scrape of stubble against my skin.” He looked over at her. “And now I touch him, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m clumsy. I’m not _Deimos_ anymore, I’m no demigod. I own nothing. I don’t work. I live here, and I visit him, and all the things I’ve done, I remember them all. Every single one.”

“It feels like we’re cursed.”

“I don’t believe in them.”

“No? After all this?”

“What crimes could we have committed as children to deserve any of it? It happened, and I walked around calling myself a demigod and no god descended from on high to stop me. If the gods were ever real, I don’t think they’re still there.” He took a deep breath and let it out, did it again. She recognized it from an old trick their mother had taught her , a way to focus on breathing and banish fear. “I killed him. You didn’t. His death is on me, not you.”

“It’s not…”

“If this man in Achaia brings you any joy, if he makes you happy, what you call it doesn’t matter. I have no idea what Makhairos and I will be in a year. No idea. We’re both ruined. But I’d rather have him than not.”

“Little brother?”

“Yes.”

“Shut up.” He did, and she stared up at the sky, at Ikaros wheeling in the air across the face of Selene. Remembering the nights spent in the grass. The night she’d listened to him propose marriage, her jaw hanging open. The smell of burning wood the night before Pylos, his cock inside her while she came with him.

The look on his face when they’d ridden the boat to Amphipolis.

And if there was another person’s face that kept coming up – a face that could smile bashfully when she complimented his cooking, the look of frustration when his father vanished, the way he smiled when she laughed at one of his terrible jokes or the night they’d almost… well, he was there. She had other people in her, why not one more?

_It will end badly. He’ll die. Because of you. You’ll lead something awful to him and he’ll die and you’ll be alone and it will be your fault._

She took one of those breaths.

_He’s already hunted. They already want to kill him, for all I know the Order came and killed him while I was gone. All we have is what we managed to snatch away, and I’ve thrown away almost two months out here that I’ll never get back._

Above her head, Ikaros kept wheeling and Selene kept shining, and the night was alive with insect song and distant howls. She wondered if he was looking up at it, too.


	3. Permission

Aeson, son of Agapios of Korinthia, had fallen into banditry when the war destroyed the family farm. He was a large, strong man, used to toil and labor and he took to it, swinging a massive club with ease. At first it had merely been necessity, but he came to relish the feeling of power that crushing a man’s skull gave him.

He became leader of his particular band of thieves and cutthroats because he broke the neck of the previous leader with one hand when the man argued with him, and moved them to a particular cave on the road between Elis and Achaia. From there, he ruled the land like a small king, forcing travelers to pay or die.

It was a good life. He’d been pleased with it.

When he’d seen the woman on horseback, he’d considered not bothering with her. One woman, not particularly richly dressed, with a spear and a sword? Unusual and while the horse looked strong, there was nothing particular about it that said _I’m worth the effort_. But Oxulos had taken one look at her and decided they were due for some fun, and Aeson had given in just to keep them all quiet.

That was five minutes ago.

Oxulos was in full retreat from her now, his shield torn out of his hand by a strange, short spear she had concealed on her back, while in her hand a _kopis_ danced, almost casually slicing wounds into his arms and torso. She moved between the bandits, striking as she went, twisting her body to avoid their return strikes.

Aeson had never really learned to fight. He hadn’t had to. The few times he’d actually fought someone who put up resistance he’d overwhelmed them with brute force. But he couldn’t _touch_ her. He swung the tree limb he called a club and watched as she just took a step to the side, her face devoid of emotion. He was used to fear, but he would have taken rage, just because he would have recognized it. But this blankness?

Nikomakos same in screaming and Oxulos thrust at her and her hand came out and then Oxulos’ blade was buried in Nikomakos’ chest, and while Oxulos tried to pull it out, she grasped his neck and twisted it and he fell to the ground with his face up, but his chest down. She stepped over his corpse, the way someone might step over a mudhole in the road, and when Aeson tried to crush her again she crossed her sword and short spear and caught the club as it arched down, sending it rebounding like he’d hit a stone wall.

Her foot lashed out and took him hard in the stomach and before he could catch himself, there she was, and the blades slid home in his chest. His heart and lungs burst and he fell down dead, never having even managed to touch her.

Kassandra of House Agaid flicked her blades on the ground and looked around. There had been six of them when they’d started, and she only counted four corpses. That meant the other two had fled.

_Should I let them live?_

Once, she would have hunted them all down for having dared to attack her. But that was back when she felt the need to prove something, and those days were long since gone. Finding them would take time and effort, especially in the rocky outcroppings and caves littering the border between Achaia and its southern neighbors.

She searched their corpses briefly, but as she’d expected, there was little of value. The one who’d leered at her had a decent dagger, she flipped it up in the air to test its weight and decided to hold on to it. The handle was ivory and it had a nice heft. Natakas might like it.

_You don’t even know if he’s still there_.

She walked back over to Phobos, who was used to her by now, and hadn’t gone far while she’d dismantled the bandits. She shook her head at the foolishness – why they’d chosen to stop a lone rider who was clearly armed and armored for war, when there were so many easier pickings along a route like this – but fools often think after they act.

She brushed her hand along Phobos’ neck, fed him a piece of pear she had in her bags. She’d had the big horse for over a decade now. And he’d been a magnificent horse, by far the best thing she’d ever gotten from Markos.

_Not that he would have given him to me if he could have done otherwise._

The ride into Achaia after that was by comparison quite uneventful. She saw soldiers on the road, but far less than she had when she’d arrived half a year before. The people were still going about their lives. Fishing, heading to the shipyards. She rode through Patrai, watching people move to and from the docks. With any luck, Barnabas would arrive in Gytheion and get her letter, know to take the _Adrestia_ up here. She missed being on the deck of her ship.

She missed a great many things. It was time to stop.

When she finally arrived in Dyme she swung around the town and found the trail up the hill, curling around and to the top of the house they’d been staying in. She had Ikaros fly ahead, look over the house, but it was hard to ride a horse and see through his eyes at the same time. She decided to focus on the horse. When she saw the fence and the entrance come into view, she slowed Phobos down to a walk, not wanting to push him too hard.

There was no one in the yard as she leapt off of the horse’s back and led him to a post, tied him off in reach of food and water. Since those were there, it seemed likely _someone_ was living there. She let her eyes close, and for a moment that sensation of drifting on nothing before she could view the world through Ikaros’ eyes.

There was no sign of either Darius or Natakas anywhere in the eagle’s vision.

She frowned as she came back fully to herself. The house wasn’t disorganized, didn’t look like it had been abandoned or ransacked. There were a few pears in a bowl on the table and the bed looked like it had been used recently. The sun was high and Achaia was warm, so she took off her helmet and placed it on the table, unwound the shawl from around the shoulders of her breastplate. Even though she’d only gotten that shawl because of Elpenor, a man who had tried to use her to kill her adoptive father, she still held on to it.

Frustrated, she paced around the room for a few minutes.

_You know, if you’d written him a letter, he would have known you were coming and he might have been here, or left you a note._

She wasn’t in the mood for this perfectly rational idea, and so instead she took her pacing outside, and clambered up the house to stare down the hill at Dyme. Ikaros came down, landed in front of her and screeched until she held out her hand for him to hop on and paid him some attention. She scratch him gently, which the bird enjoyed.

“So I race back here and the place is empty, and I don’t even know if he’s still here or if someone else lives here now, and I left my helmet and shawl inside like I own the place.” Ikaros focused his huge eyes on her face when she spoke. “Which sound like me, you have to admit.”

If the eagle had an opinion, he didn’t bother to share it.

She felt absurd crouching on the roof, but was too agitated to relax. So agitated, in fact, that she heard the sound. It was extremely faint, but it was a sound she was familiar with – the sound of someone making a jump and catching the edge of a rock while climbing, the fingers finding purchase in a small crack or seam. She could tell by the way it sounded that a calloused palm had slapped into stone.

She waited, taking extremely shallow breaths, not moving. The sound changed as rock became wood and as she waited there, Darius came into view. He was below her, pulling himself up next to the spar of wood that provided a perfect platform for leaping down, and she made sure to wait until he was standing, his feet planted firmly.

“Not bad.” His eyes widened and he looked up at her. “I almost didn’t hear you coming.”

“I did not hear you at all.”

“First time for everything.” She looked around, but saw no sign of the person she’d wanted to speak to. Not that she disliked Darius, but there was always an acute sense that they were too much alike to ever really be close. “Are you alone?”

“I was not followed.”

“I mean…”

“I know what you mean. He’s in Patrai for a while longer. He has friends back in Makedonia he writes to, and he buys things we can’t get in Dyme. Like paper for letters. He has written several, but you didn’t reply.” In a way, she was almost touched by the subtle reproach in his voice, the concern for his son leaking through.

“I haven’t seen them yet. Where did he send them?”

“One to Laconia a few days ago. I know he sent two to Keos, because he had to find a ship captain willing to _go_ to Keos.”

“I left Laconia yesterday and it was not there yet.” She thought about that one. It probably crossed paths with her, she may have even ridden past the rider with it. “If he mailed to Keos, it’s possible Barnabas will pick it up on the way to Gytheion. But it will be a few days before he reaches Patrai, I think.”

Darius shrugged. This was more than he usually talked, if left to his own choice. But she felt the need to ask.

“How is he?”

“Quieter than usual.” Darius could shrug without moving a muscle. “Kleta and a young friend of hers came to visit. Nephele. Apparently she is a niece of Kleta’s, she came for the funeral and stayed.” He didn’t have to say what funeral. Kassandra had deliberately avoided Kleta, not out of dislike, but to spare the woman the pain of seeing someone who took part in her daughter’s death. Kassandra had tried to spare Phila, but she’d ultimately lost her life to the injuries suffered in their duel.

_She reminded me too much of myself_.

“Are they still in town?”

“Kleta went back to Boura.” Kassandra noticed he was avoiding meeting her eyes. She nodded, knowing what his word choice meant.

“She must be a nice girl.”

“She is. Helpful. She’s shown us what we need here to settle in. Not that I needed the help.”

“No, not that you did” She leaned against the wall. “So. I have never done this before.”

“Done what?”

“I know he’s not with her. I mean, perhaps he’s with her, but… you know what I mean. Whether or not she wants him he hasn’t accepted her yet.”

“You know this.”

“I do.” She looked out to where Ikaros was flying over Dyme. “You and he are very close.”

“He is my son.”

“Yes. But not what I mean.” She took one of the deep breaths her mother had taught her as a child, held it, released it slowly. Took another. “He loves and respects you, and your opinion is important to him.”

“Perhaps.”

“I want your permission.”

“For?” She could have sworn he’d smiled at her, but he was a master at using that beard and an artful turn of his head to hide his expression.

“In Sparta, he would have to ask my father for permission to court me. Not that I would allow Nikolaos to do that, but it would be the custom. I see no reason the custom shouldn’t apply here.”

“Would your father give him permission?”

“I wouldn’t ask. But Nikolaos and I aren’t close. He threw me off of a mountain.” She waited for him to turn and look at her. “I will admit, I will eventually want my _mater_ to meet him, and her approval would be important to me. But not the same way yours is to him. If you think I would be bad for him, then I’ll leave.”

“You would not see him again if I said I didn’t approve?”

“Oh. No, I would. I just wouldn’t court him.”

“What does it mean, to court him?”

“I have no idea. I have lived the past years on the deck of a ship. Travel the waves hunting the Cult. Take jobs in every port. You meet people, things happen… the last real person, he courted me. So I don’t know how to do this, but I find myself wanting to do it.”

“All I want is for him to be happy. He has already decided what he wants.”

“Has he?”

“He is buying paper. No doubt to write you another letter.”

She also felt talked out. Between her mother, her brother and now Darius, she’d talked more than she had in years. So instead she simply leaned against the wall and said nothing.

*

Natakas rode up the hill from Dyme to the house with night close behind him, the sun sinking into the Ionian Sea. He stopped briefly to look at the island of Kephallonia, remembering her talking to him about it.

_It wasn’t all bad. The people were mostly shit, but there was Phoibe._ She’d smiled when she mentioned the girl. _And Markos had his moments. He spaced them out, so I didn’t have to worry too much about suddenly liking him too much._

He felt bad for Nephele, who had clearly formed an infatuation with him. He’d been up front with her, and she’d understood as best as a young woman with a crush can understand.

_So she doesn’t want you?_

He hated that question, because he couldn’t really argue against it. Kassandra had made herself clear before leaving on one of her Cultist hunts, and he hadn’t heard back from her. Perhaps he never would. But he knew he wasn’t where Nephele was and it would be cruel to pretend otherwise. Natakas hated few things as much as he hated cruelty.

_You hate living on the run almost as much._

He truly, sincerely did not want to leave the house in Dyme. He’d moved several times in his life, always on the run from the Order, but after the blow they’d dealt to the Order of the Storm and Pactyas in Makedonia, he wanted to believe that they were out of their reach. They were all the way back in Persia, and he was in mainland Greece now – the one country never to have fallen to Persian arms, the one land to ever successfully drive out a full invasion force in straight battle. If Greece wasn’t safe from the Order, where on all the Earth could they possibly run to?

Thinking these thoughts, he reached the house, shading his eyes from the blazing red of the sunset with his hand. His eyes took in a silhouette of a horse, the house itself, and two figures… locked in combat? He couldn’t see them well, they were entirely framed by the sun, but one was wearing a familiar hood, while the other was in a leather breastplate with both shoulders exposed.

He fumbled for his bow just as his father – at least he _thought_ it was, his eyes hadn’t adjusted yet – dropped onto his back. Then he heard the man laugh.

“That was how you did it?” Natakas saw the other figure step into the shadow cast by the house and reach out a hand, clasping Darius’s wrist and pulling him back upright.

“Just like that.” In the shadow her face was clearly visible, that little scar on her lip, the thick braid of loam-dark hair. He’d seen that face almost nightly as he slept, and had not expected to see her there. She’d taken her shawl off, which he found odd – she almost never wore that armor without the shawl around her shoulders. It made the lines of her shoulders prominent, and he swallowed at the sight.

They both finally noticed him sitting astride his horse.

“Oh, you’re back.” Darius brushed himself off. “Did you see Nephele off?”

“There were some travelers heading to Boura.” He looked from his father to Kassandra and back again. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Just a little sparring. She’s much better at it than you are.”

“She’s probably less afraid she’ll hurt you.”

“Despite having more reason to be concerned than you.” Strangers often missed Darius’ subtle humor, but Natakas had grown up with it, and knew when he was being teased. “Get off the horse. You have things to do.”

He dismounted without taking his eyes off of her. She clearly found something amusing, which was a quality he’d come to associate with her. Kassandra could be serious – grim, even, and she had a sardonic streak he’d seen when they fought the Order together – but she never quite seemed able to forget to notice life’s absurd moments.

There was in her a clean, strong-limbed beauty that made her stand out, no matter what she was doing. She was at least as good a shot with a bow as he was, a far better runner, and strong enough to pick a grown man up with one hand and slam him against the wall by the throat. At the moment she was leaning against the wall, her arms folded.

“How have you been?”

“Good. Busy. Found Iobates. Went home for a bit. You?”

“Trying to get this place in order. Learned how to make a proper garden. Turns out you can grow chickpeas here.” He led his horse to a free space and tied it, then got it water. Turned to see her carrying provender over and placing it where both his horse and her beast, that big monster she rode everywhere, could get at it. “Done a little hunting. No boars, though.”

“No?”

“Wouldn’t have felt right without you.”

“Can’t have that.” She looked at him, standing not far away. “Darius told me you wrote. I haven’t gotten them yet, I’m sorry.”

“You’re here, so I can just speak.” He gestured to the house. “Do you want to…”

“I will. But…walk with me?” She gestured towards the path up to the house, the one that curled down the hill towards Dyme, her eyebrow arched and he was following her before he even thought to nod. The sun was behind them, throwing deep shadows and a red glow over the hillside.

“Are we going anywhere?”

“I don’t know.” She stopped walking near a stand of trees they’d often used to wait and watch, and sometimes to talk. “I have thought about you. About what I said to you.”

“I have too.”

“I spoke with your father.”

“I saw.”

“No, well before that. That was just to pass the time.” She squared her shoulders, and seeing her do that made him ache, just a little. “I asked him for his permission.”

“For what?”

“To find out what you are to me.” She was standing like they were about to fight, but there was no hostility in her eyes and he found himself arrested by them. “I have… I was not lying, and I was not _wrong_, exactly, but I also was not right. Things are complicated. People. Feelings. _You_.”

“How am I complicated?”

“How are you not?”

“You’re the one who went to my father and… wait. What exactly did you ask him for? Did you trade him some goats for me?”

“Would that have worked?”

“I’m worth more than _some_ goats.”

“I do not have a surplus of goats to offer for you, in any case.”

“But you _did_ offer something.”

“I simply asked for his permission, because I know how close you are.” There was an edge of frustration, but also more of that amusement. The way her face changed when she bit at her lip to keep from laughing. “May I continue?”

“I wouldn’t dream of opposing you, _misthios_.” He let himself jab at her, just slightly. “How much of a dowry did you end up deciding I’m worth?”

“We didn’t get that far.” She stepped closer. He’d heard that Spartan women were renowned throughout Hellas, and seeing her in the sunset he believed it. “I have not lied to you. I do not know what I feel. But I think often of you, and when I thought I would not see you again, it was not a welcome thought.”

“You are a maddening woman.”

“I am that.” She reached out a hand and touched him, gently, just brushing his cheek and despite wanting to drag it out he felt gooseflesh rise where her hand had been. “If you no longer want me, you just have to say and I’ll go.”

“Do you want me?”

“If not, then the dreams I’ve been having make no sense.”

“You dreamed about me?”

“There was also a shark accused of impiety and a symposium that decided to eat grass.”

“I’m really much more interested in the part that’s about me.”

“I expected you might be.”

“I still want you.” He stepped to the tree next to her, leaned against it, looking into her eyes. “You know my feelings. They haven’t changed.”

“I thought perhaps you’d thought better of it.”

“Oh, I’m still very curious what dowry you will give my father.”

“Natakas?”

“Yes?”

“It would be better if you shut up and kissed me now.” The sun was almost gone, the woods edged in that orange-red glow just over the horizon, and he brought his thumb to touch her lip softly, trace the scar on it. She was taller than him, so she didn’t have to look up to meet his eyes, and her cradled her chin in his hand before moving in.

The core of him was trembling, his nerves taut and creaking. They had not kissed yet and he’d _wanted_ it for long enough that it had become huge, and when her lips touched his it was a quiet thing, delicate.

Until it wasn’t and he found himself pinned against the tree by her, her right arm around his neck, her hand in his hair. She was strong enough to break that neck with that hand, and he knew it and the knowing just made every part of him ache, yearn to feel more of her. Her mouth tasted faintly of grapes, her lips moved hot against his, and her tongue slipped past them and into his mouth.

When they finally parted for air she leaned her head against his, her hands on his shoulders. He didn’t remember wrapping her in his arms, but there she was.

“Let’s go back to the house.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, there's a fourth chapter now. Sorry. I kind of wanted to write a somewhat lighter chapter.


	4. We don't need words

The air was starting to get cold at night.

Naked, she lay on her back, listening to him breathe. He was a light sleeper, but she found she could continue on much less sleep than he could, or that anyone (save possibly Alexios, and she didn’t really know about him) she knew. Even Darius needed at least four hours a night to function.

She let her eyes trail up Natakas’ body. He wasn’t as muscular as Brasidas had been, nor was he as compact as Daphnae or as willowy as Kyra. She’d had a few other lovers, but no one quite like Natakas. She ran her hand down his chest, listened to the little noises he made in his sleep. She’d learned that she could touch him while he slept and he wouldn’t wake, unless she touched his cock. That woke him.

She didn’t do that just yet.

From the time she was seven until twice that many years had passed, she’d lived almost feral on Kephallonia. There was so much she had no time for, and if not for the good start her _mater_ had given her, she might never have been able to leave. But she’d been taught to think, and she’d kept at it. She’d not broken on that rock, not even when Anais left. There was so much she never learned, so much that was part of other people’s lives but which didn’t contribute to survival.

Of all the people she’d met, Natakas came the closest to understanding it. He had been with his family, but one by one he’d lost them – his brothers and sisters, his mother all stripped from him, his father destroyed by inches. Home after home ripped away from him. His need for a home, for stability, it was born out of those losses. Survival had become all consuming, and it was something Kassandra could understand.

Her hand flattened against his stomach, feeling the softness of the skin there.

_You are beautiful_. It was true that he was, but it was so hard to say anything like that to him. It sounded too close to saying _I love you_, and she would never say that. It wasn’t true. She’d been in love before, and it hadn’t felt like this. Loving Brasidas had been recognizing how well they fit together, how they moved together in combat, how close he came to being able to stand beside her.

Natakas didn’t even try to match her. He accepted that she was what she was, and he was not. He was smart, funny, insightful, a good shot with a bow, quick to improvise, and he cared – while she still had in her the mercenary who grew up making every drachmae count, who wanted to get paid because money meant security and safety and survival, it had been Natakas who insisted they help the people in Achaia when the Order began squeezing the region.

_Thank you, Kassandra._

“For what?” She whispered it, remembering the look on his face when he’d said it.

_For helping, when no one else would_.

Brasidas had been a warrior, a soldier. Kyra a rebel, fighting to overthrow a tyrant. Daphnae a zealot whose faith in her god was so strong she’d been willing to die to prove it. Natakas was none of these things. Being with him was surprisingly easy. He gave, and he took surprisingly little. Oh, he could be moody, and his sense of humor was borderline torture. And she worried what _mater_ and Alexios would say, much less Stentor or Nikolaos, if she ever brought a Persian home.

_A fine jest on you, grandfather. You died keeping them out of Hellas, and here I am in bed with one_. The year of knowing him had eroded her prejudices about his people – from what she’d seen, Persians were just people, not all that different from Hellenes or Thrakians or Egyptians. They had awful taste in weapons and armor, though. Some day, some enterprising Greek would raise a band of a few thousand _hoplites_ and hire on with one of the Great King’s enemies, and then the Persians would learn what Greeks could do _outside_ of their own shores.

She’d shared this idea with Darius once, and he’d laughed.

_There are many Greek cities in the Empire. _

_Ionians._ She’d snorted that. As much as she’d traveled, as much as she remembered the squabbling Ionian and Dorian patriarchs who’d hired her in Olympia to discover who’d stolen their treasure, she’d been raised a Spartan, and Spartans were Dorians to the bone.

“So many foolish things.” She said it in a hush, her hand still on his chest. “Why do I want you, want this so much? Why does leaving make me ache?”

He lolled in his sleep but did not awaken and she let her hand slide off of him. Waking him to ask him questions like that would be both foolish and cruel. Instead, she stood, and found a discarded _exomis_ on the floor. With it on, she padded out of the room like a shadow.

Outside in the yard, the other house shadow was watching the sky.

“Darius.”

“Kassandra.” They weren’t whispering, but they were keeping their voices down. Theirs was an unusual relationship – she was sharing a bed with his son, and had been for months now, but they were ummarried. At times she didn’t know how to act around Darius. If anything shocked him, he didn’t show it, and that seemed to extend to his son and his somewhat unconventional relationship. “You’re up late.”

“The sun won’t be up for hours.”

“Usually I find you here.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She looked up at the stars. “I’m going to Patrai for mail today. Do you have anything you want delivered?”

“No. Have you asked Natakas?”

“It was his idea.” She gestured faintly at the house. “A letter to Makedonia. One of his contacts there.”

Darius glowered but didn’t reply, and she let him disapprove. One shouldn’t be _too_ close with one’s father-in-law…

Her eyes widened as she realized what that thought implied.

_We’re not married. _She forgot he was there, turning the idea over in her head. He hadn’t asked her, of course, not after her _I can’t love you_ speech and the way she’d flown off to hunt Cultists. She’d honestly not even thought about it until that very moment. She felt queasy, her head beading up with sweat, because she had no idea what it meant that he hadn’t asked, or that she _cared_ that he hadn’t asked.

She turned and walked to the house, pulled herself up with one arm, reached the top and the perch over Dyme, It was still far too early to head into town. If she left for Patrai now she’d be waiting at least two hours until dawn, and the Agora there would take even longer. But the _Adrestia_ was docked there, if she left now she could have Barnabas awake and at sea well before the sun rose.

_To go where?_

_I don’t know. _After so many years of running and fighting, trying to forget what had happened or escape it, she was suddenly presented with the grim truth. She had never really stopped. She’d used the Cult and the Order as excuses. She’d put off her own life.

“Are you all right?” Darius had come up after her. She turned, looking at him, and he took in the wild look in her eyes. Thankfully he didn’t approach her. “Kassandra. Do you hear me?”

“Of course I hear you, you’re only four feet away, I’m not deaf.” She hissed. That earned a very slight smile, almost a smirk.

“Do you wish to speak of it?”

“It’s foolish.”

“I have been foolish a time or two in my life.”

“I’ve been treating this… this place, Natakas… like it was temporary. Like it was going to end. Because all things end. But you can’t live you life _waiting_ for them to end. You can’t live that way.”

“You can.”

“It’s not _living_.” She shook her head. “On Kephallonia, all I wanted to do was leave. To escape it. I escaped from Sparta, and spent my life either leaving, or wanting to leave. I became a _misthios_ because I saw no other path open to me. But that’s not who I am now.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t.” She had walked out onto the spar of wood, was balanced on it, letting her thoughts race. “I don’t _want_ to go anywhere. Why do I keep preparing to do something I don’t want to do?”

“I would ask what it is you do want before I could answer that.”

“I…” She made herself stop and think, keeping the wood gripped between her feet, each curled around the wood while her knees bent outward. Balanced. In the night sky, she could feel Ikaros gliding. Perhaps she’d woken him with her agitation. She let him descend and land on her arm, felt him welcoming her as he hopped up to her shoulder.

_What do you want?_

_This. I want this. This little place, and the people I’ve let into me. I just want this. I don’t want to rule anything or be anyone’s hero, I just want… this. I don’t mind the work, and I don’t mind leaving from time to time to pay the cost… but I want this to come back to._

“Thank you, Darius.”

“For what?”

“It was the right question.” She gave Ikaros a little scratch at the base of his head, and got a contented noise for her troubles. He went back to the air and she dropped off of the spar, catching it with her hands, and flipped herself forward to land on the side of the house.

Natakas woke up as she came in the window. He rolled away, surprised.

“What’s wrong?” He was looking for clothes.

“Do you ever think about us?”

“I… yes?” Standing in the room holding one of the tunics he preferred in his hand, blinking in the faint moonlight, he looked comical and she almost laughed. “I, you just, the window…did I dream that?”

“No, I was outside.”

“Okay.” He leaned against the table. She was a little distracted looking at him. There was something about seeing him sleepy and confused and very exposed that she enjoyed, and she remembered other mornings spent grazing her fingers down the patch of hair just above the junction of his thighs. “What are we, I, what do you mean?”

“Us. You and I.” She hopped out of the window. “I have to go to Patrai today. Check the mail, look for work offers. When I’m done, I’ll come back here.”

“Yes.” It was impressive how he almost managed to turn that word into a question.

“I have been doing that. I go, and I come back.”

“You have.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes, of course it is. Why are you asking me this?”

“I live here.”

“I am very lost right now.”

“I live here, with you.” She stepped closer, brought both of her hands up to his face. Touched him, gently. “And I want that to be my life. I want to live here, with you. I want to be myself – to go do what I do, what I’m best at. The skills I have. And when I’m done, I want to come back here, to you.” She brought her face to his, speaking with just inches separating them. “Is that something you want? Is that a life for you?”

“I told you before how I felt. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Do you want to…” She couldn’t stop. The space between them was so small, it took nothing to step into it, to bring her mouth onto his and feel him quiver as she kissed him. His hands flat on her back, his arms wrapping around her, hers still on his face. She felt him get hard through her _exomis_ and gently slid her fingers around him. She knew she was probably making it worse for him, because men are terrible at thinking when they’re hard, so she broke the kiss and bit at the side of his neck to listen to him groan. “We can talk after.”

She laughed when his groan turned into a growl and he lifted her, a rare thing from him. It was only four feet to the bed and he dropped them both onto it, ending up on his side with her leg over his hip. His eyes wide and glazed over, a look she had come to recognize if not understand. She let him kiss her while her hand kept contact with him, deliberately, maddeningly gentle. Not enough to push him over, just enough to keep him there.

Getting naked meant breaking contact so she simply rocked back and let him pull her _exomis_ up, his breathing ragged. Both of them had grown up with little in the sense of security – he’d always been on the run with his family crammed into wherever they’d found, she’d spent her developing years in a series of what could only charitably be called hovels, always afraid a pack of boys or men would come and try and drive her out or worse. They were both quiet by nature, and so every little noise he made – every sigh, or gasp, or moan as she kept sliding her hand up and down to his base was like a treasure. A sign that he couldn’t stop himself.

She rolled him onto his back and straddled him, pulling the dislodged _exomis_ over her head in one motion, letting him look at her in the moonlight. He’d seen it, of course. But there was still a pleasure to be had in feeling his reaction to her, in seeing his eyes go wide. His hands came up to rest on her ribcage, slid down to her hips.

“Are you…”

“_Yes_, gods, woman, yes I’m ready.” He was louder than he wanted to be and she loved that, the way his breathing sped up when her hand found his cock again. Stroked it a few times, while his hands trembled at her sides and his fingers tightened their grip. He was fighting to keep them still, tension etched in the line of his throat, his shoulders.

She lifted herself up and guided him in, slid it against her clit a few times just to feel it. He moaned, slammed his mouth shut and thrust his head to the side into the bed to try and keep it down, even though they were long past the point of worrying about someone hearing them. She laughed as she began moving on him, slowly at first. Bent down to kiss at his neck, small soft kisses that led up to the junction of his throat and jawline, using her teeth sparingly.

When he brought his mouth up she watched his lips part, saw the slight pink of this tongue and pounced on him, kissing him hard, capturing him. His hips were rocking up now, trying to match her, and she kept the pace slow to keep him where she wanted him. On the edge, but not over it. This position meant she was in control and she took it, kept it.

She leaned back up, looking down to see his eyes closed and his neck bridging, almost shoving himself up to get closer to her. She laughed, gentler than she felt. He opened his eyes to meet her, a look she found heady like Messenian wine on his face. Lust, yes, but also this gentle regard for her, and a touch of wonder there that always surprised her no matter how often they were together. It was not a look she’d seen before on others, it was a look she only got from Natakas.

She knew he was on the edge. In the past, she’d stop here, use her hand to finish him, and then he’d use his fingers or mouth on her. At that moment, she chose something else. He grunted as she sped up, rocking herself fully on him, his hands holding onto her.

“I’m…”

“Yes.” She breathed it, almost panting. “Do it now.”\

“But…”

“If you want me to stop, tell me now.” She leaned down so their faces were close. “Otherwise, yes. I want it. I want you.”

She’d known it would happen when she said that, and when it did – his hips moving in short thrusts, the cock inside her releasing in several pulses, his mouth finding hers as he cried out in release, muffled into hers – she laughed again in something like delight. It took him a while to finish and she kept him there until she was sure he had, and stayed atop him for a while after, while his breathing slowly returned to normal.

“You didn’t…” She quieted him with a finger.

“I will. We have hours yet.” She brushed his lips, traced a line up to his eyes with that finger. “I was thinking, my _mater_ would kill us both if we don’t ask her to come up. And Xios, you should meet him, he’ll hate you and he won’t think you’re good enough for me. You’ll have to ignore that. I’m not sure if Niko… if _pater_ would want to come up, or Stentor.”

“I feel like this is a conversation you had without including me.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose I didn’t actually ask.” She rocked her hips again, felt the softening cock insider her twitch. “I was thinking, though. You don’t want someone else, yes? You still want me?”

“I… what? Of course I… Kassandra. You know how I feel, I’ve told you how I…”

“So, I thought, we could get married.” She leaned forward and held herself above him with her arms. He liked her arms, liked watching them working out or sparring, and she knew they’d draw his attention now. “Since you don’t want anyone else and I don’t want anyone else and we’re basically living like we’re married anyway.”

“This… was a proposal?”

“No, I suppose I should have done that. I just felt like we’d already moved past it?”

“You can’t just move past it.” He laughed, relaxed slightly, Looked up at her and smiled, that impossibly bright smile that often baffled her. How he could take such pleasure from a world that seemed so determined to steal everything from him. From them both, if she were being honest. “Kassandra of Sparta, you are a constant surprise.”

“Is that a yes? Because we have a lot of planning to do, if it’s a yes.”

“Yes. It’s a yes.” He brought his hand up to cradle her cheek. She nuzzled into it, into him. “I guess we’d better get it done quickly.”

“Within nine months or so, surely.” She laughed again at the blank look on his face. “Hadn’t considered that?”

“I… had not. But it’s…sometimes it takes a while, and we haven’t…”

“As I said.” She lowered herself fully, enjoying the way his hand trailed down her side, brushed her nipple on the way. “We have a few hours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not exactly a happy ending, but a happy moment? I wanted some sexy times and affection, and in my head Kassandra loves him but can't bring herself to say those words for fear of losing him. That's how it works in my head, anyway. Natakas, being a perceptive lad, is fine with having her on her terms.


End file.
